


war (what is it good for?)

by beau



Category: Percy Jackson and the Olympians - Rick Riordan, The Heroes of Olympus - Rick Riordan
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Asexual Annabeth Chase, F/M, Mentioned Annabeth, Mutual Pining, Platonic Soulmates, Post-The Blood of Olympus, Slow Burn
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-11
Updated: 2018-03-11
Packaged: 2019-03-29 23:36:56
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,081
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13937859
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/beau/pseuds/beau
Summary: percy/reyna, percy + annabeth platonic soulmates | pg | 3k | auau in which percy (finally) accepts reyna’s offer





	war (what is it good for?)

**Author's Note:**

> prompt: it's not real  
> this was written for 15pairings on lj. i meant to have it finished by 2012 but haha  
> that clearly didn’t happen.

001.

annabeth loves to work, and loving percy is something she has to work at, so therefore loving him is easy. or well, that’s what she tells herself when she feels jaded and doubtful. she loves him though, she knows she does. you can’t escape tartarus with someone and not feel bound to them for life. 

however, the dust settles, and life goes on, and annabeth gets to work and so does percy. the first months after the war are all rebuild and rebirth. and while percy sees annabeth delving deeper and deeper into her work, he pays no mind because they are bound to each other like the sun to the earth. 

she was given the opportunity to rebuild olympus from the ground up, but she didn’t even get to start her designs before another war broke out. 

this was finally her chance.

the bond they share will never disappear, even when they come together, and even when they come apart. 

annabeth has her future and her plans and olympus at her feet. percy can wait. when she says this to him, with all the love she has in her heart, constructing every sentence she says to him with the meticulous craft and precision of an architect, he smiles, he understands and he can’t blame her at all. 

while she’s been rebuilding the palace of the gods, he’s been going to and from camp jupiter and camp half-blood so much that he’s barely had time to see her. he can’t remember the last time they even spoke.

after tartarus he began to feel it either way. that she was less of a girlfriend and more of a soulmate. he can’t remember how it was he felt before tartarus, how it was that he could somehow feel for annabeth in a way that wasn’t solely all protection and sharp respect. they are synchronized to the touch, but she is his other-half. nothing less and nothing more. 

the relationship they shared before the war died the second hell swallowed them up. 

it’s kind of a relief for him in all honesty. the entire ordeal feels more like a sigh of relief than a break up, he knows that where there is percy there is annabeth. when his heart beats hers follows. 

so he marches on. 

002.

a jolt passes through his entire body when he notices reyna is IMing him. over the past few months they had gotten significantly closer. he had probably seen her more in a week than he’d seen annabeth in two months, he thinks to himself. 

he notices that he’s smiling to himself when he answers the call, but he doesn’t notice until reyna asks if there’s something on her face. 

“did you deliver the offerings from lupa to chiron?” she asks, adjusting her toga in the mirror. 

percy nods. “yeah, i was actually going to be on my way, there’s something i’d like to talk to you about.” 

“percy,” she begins, “is everything alright? gods please tell me that travis stoll didn’t get chosen as one of the camp representatives for the legion.” 

he shakes his head with a laugh, “no. but could you imagine?”

she lets out a sigh of relief. “then what’s this about? should i be concerned?” 

“it has nothing to do with the delegations. just some unfinished business we should probably discuss before another titan decides to, y’know, swallow the earth whole.”

she scoffs and says,“alright then. i’ll be waiting.”

003.

reyna ends the call and gets back to her desk. she straightens the stack of papers in front of her and begins to shuffle through them. she hates war, she does. the lives lost, the destruction. but she loves war all the same. it’s in her blood -- the adrenaline, the combat, the battle. 

you never see such strong teamwork like when you’re faced with a life or death situation. your army moving in unison. one heart, one body. the years of training finally coming together, like a skillfully woven masterpiece. 

there's something so beautiful about a well executed strategy, she likes to think. reyna loves every second of it, leading her army into battle, the strategizing, the risk taking, the life saving. the greater good. fighting the good fight -- that’s what she loves.  
and reyna doesn’t want to trivialize the evil that comes from it. she doesn’t want to call it her guilty pleasure. but bloodshed is in her bones and war runs through her veins. 

there are many terrible, terrible things that come from war.  
but there is also some good. 

for example, something that she’s grateful for is that, were it not for the war, she would have never met percy. he would not have fallen from the sky and started an all out civil war. 

out of necessity of course, they must delegate representatives for each camp, form new bonds, rebuild the relationships between demigods on both ends. 

percy’s heart is too big, reyna thinks. he wants to take the initiative to start getting the greeks to build relationships with their roman counterparts. she rolls her eyes at the prospect with a smile. 

004.

percy arrives at camp jupiter the next day, courtesy of a herd of hippocampi, lead by rainbow himself. he notices hazel and frank walking toward the fifth cohort and runs towards them. 

“percy!” they exclaim in unison.  
the second hazel catches a glimpse of him she darts towards him, wrapping her arms around his neck and enveloping him in a hug. he hugs her tightly and lifts her up, grinning at her when he puts her back down. 

hazel flashes a smile that lights up her whole face, her golden brown hair gleaming in the light. “i didn’t think you would be getting here so soon!”  
he tousles her hair, “yeah, neither did i to be honest but i guess rainbow felt like using me as the perfect way to show off his skills to the ladies.” 

he turns around to greet frank, but before percy even has a chance to acknowledge him, he’s being lifted up into his arms, feeling the strength of his biceps crushing him to his death. percy was really feeling the love but he was also feeling the lack circulation reaching the rest of his body so he squirms around in frank’s arms until he puts percy down. 

“it’s great to see you too bud, uh, i just really wasn’t trying to get any brain damage today.”

frank laughs and gives him a slap on the back. “so how long are you staying this time? do you think you’ll have time to grab a bite to eat with us?”

percy rubs his back with a painful smile, “i want to say yes but i can’t really promise anything yet,” he says while straightening his shirt. “how-ev-er,” he chimes, “if you guys find anywhere nearby that makes blue nachos i will gladly drop whatever i’m doing to join in.” 

 

005\. 

after he parts ways with hazel and frank, he follows the via praetoria down it’s rows of buildings and streets until he arrives at the principia.

the guards on duty are farrah and kendrick, and while percy wants to greet them, he knows that when the campers are on duty they had to essentially be the roman versions of the queen’s guard. silent, professional, and completely still. they had orders to allow him entrance on sight, so in a swift motion they step away from the door and reposition their spears in their hands to be facing away from him. 

he knew they couldn’t respond if he gave them a “thank you” so he simply nods at them in gratitude and makes his way along the passage to the main room. 

once he walks past the throne-like seats for the praetors, he makes his way along the back and knocks on the door that connects the main building of the principia to a private room.

reyna saw that room as a home away from home, because although her praetor’s house was less than a block away, she spent most of her days in that room, deemed the “praetors-only-clubhouse” by octavian.

it was furnished like an office, with a large dark cherry-brown wooden desk with a smoky finish that was littered with scrolls and maps and pens in the center of the room, and a floor to ceiling bookshelf directly behind the desk. it had all the basic office elements, but what percy really liked about it was how everything had a touch of reyna to it, from the bowl of jelly beans sitting atop the desk, to the window seat that was covered in blankets and pillows ( messy and unmade as if someone had just taken a nap there), to the mess of clothes around the room. whoever said guys were messy clearly never met reyna, percy thought to himself.

despite that, percy loved the room. he loved seeing how relaxed reyna got once she shut that door and sat beside the window, admiring the view the room had of the wide hills and strawberry fields that surrounded the camp she loved so much. he loved seeing reyna so calm, yet focused. they made some of their best progress in that room as well as their best memories. 

he recalled a few weeks prior when he and reyna had to discuss the nominations for camp representatives and reyna was so exhausted that she fell asleep and percy didn’t even notice that she was sleep talking until he finally looked up at her after 15 minutes of having a one-sided conversation. he spent the rest of the night recording the nonsense she’d babble after he’d ask her questions. the next day he showed her, and to his delight, rather than getting impaled, she laughed until she was red in the face and wiping tears from her eyes.

at this point in percy and reyna’s friendship, reyna was comfortable enough to let him have access to the room whenever he wanted, without knocking or getting approval to enter it. out of courtesy he always knocked before entering the room even if she didn’t say anything.

he walks in just as reyna lets down her hair from her braid. seeing the thick, dark waves fall down her back makes a sudden blush creep up percy’s entire face, starting at the nape of his neck and ending at the top of his ears

“oh, percy, hello. i wasn’t expecting you this early” she said, combing her fingers through her hair. she was perched at the window-sill seat with a cup of hot chocolate in her hands. her armor and toga were off and she was dressed in a purple sweatshirt that had SPQR written on the front, wrap up roman style sandals and leggings.

she gets up from her seat and walks behind her desk, setting the hot chocolate down next to her bowl of jelly beans before she sits back down.

“where should we start?” she asks, sifting through the stacks of paper she has on her desk, color coordinated and organized alphabetically and chronologically. percy wondered how her desk could be so organized while the rest of the space looked like a stomping ground.

before percy could even give that thought any more attention, he became too busy admiring the way reyna’s long nails tapped against her mug impatiently or the way her bangs dusted her forehead when she rested her cheek on her palm.

reyna raises a brow and impatiently waves her hand in front of his face. “hello? pay attention, jackson. your greek is coming out.”

percy snickers and moves her hand away. “sorry, i was just spacing out. i’m pretty sure rainbow gave me whiplash.”

she narrows her eyes quizzically and continues to look for whatever paper it was she was searching for. without looking up she asks, “so what was it that you needed to speak to me about?”

he props his elbows on her desk, and leans towards her with a too-wide percy grin. when she looks up and notices how giddy percy looks, she furrows her brows in confusion and looks back down. 

“what’s this about?” she asks with a glare.

“reyna,” he begins, “are you in love?”

006\. 

“i don’t believe in love” she says with a sad smile, “it’s not real.”

 

percy’s not sure if this is what an ulcer feels like or if he suddenly got stabbed in the chest but he thinks he can feel his heart physically shatter. 

she gets up and walks to her bookshelf, clearly not finding whatever it was she was looking for in the stack of papers, or possibly trying to avoid the situation at hand altogether.

 

“c’mon reyna, you don’t mean that,” he insists, getting up and walking beside her.

“that’s easy for you to say, percy. you’ve known nothing but love all your life. from your mother, your father, your friends, your camp -- even the gods love you! not to mention the fact that you have annabeth. the closest i’ve ever felt to love has been respect.” 

“i’m not with annabeth,” he tells her. “me and her -- there's always going to be a bond there, we’re always going to love each other, but tartarus really put our relationship to the test. and it looks like tartarus won.”

“what -- wait -- you what?” she stammered, “you and annabeth? thats impossible!”

he inches closer and closer to her until their faces are a mere breaths away. she looks up at him and quickly looks back down to avoid the embarrassment of him seeing her blush. 

“listen reyna,” percy says with a grin, tucking a stray hair behind her ear as he looks down at her. “you do know what love is. it’s what you feel for jelly beans. It’s what you feel for skippy. it's what you feel for the camp -- your legion. and it’s what i feel for you.”

just as reyna shoots her head up in shock, her dark eyes resembling glistening shards of obsidian, percy presses his lips to hers; one soft kiss. 

he leans back with a smile, “it’s very possible.”

 

\---  
007\. 

to percy, the kiss was a bit of an oxymoron, quite like reyna herself. it was a soft kiss. a kiss so soft it was probably blessed by nephele herself. it felt like early mornings and low tides. but he felt all of reyna in that kiss as well. he felt a spark, her fire, her passion, her vigor, her fury.

to percy the kiss was soft, but to reyna that kiss was an earthquake. a volcanic eruption. a hurricane. that kiss rattled her bones, it brought both the realms of gods and mortals to their knees. her heart was shaking in her chest, and before she could even process what had just happened, she found herself melting beneath his touch like putty before quickly pushing him back.

reyna wanted so badly to slap him. 

“how dare you, percy jackson,” she snarled, raw pain and anger dripping from her every word. “i will not make the same mistake twice. if you think you can prance into my camp almost every single day under the guise of peace and civility just to come and disrespect me, you are sadly mistaken.” 

percy can a feel a lump in his throat as his heart sinks deeper and deeper into his chest. hearing all the pain and anger reyna had stored in her was devastating to him and he wanted nothing more than to grab her in his arms and kiss her again, this time for longer. 

“i’m not here to disrespect you, reyna,” he says, taken aback. “i was the one that made the mistake, not you.”

she shifts her posture and crosses her arms over her chest. “i’m listening…”

he gulps and continues, knowing reyna well enough by now that any wrong move may result in his severed head. 

“when i first became praetor alongside you we were in the middle of a war, my memories had barely returned, and i was getting tugged in two different direction by two different camps. the planets just weren't aligned.”

he walks towards her again, this time resting his hands on her shoulders. “i’m so sorry i left you alone. jason was gone and then you had me and i --” he looks at her and sees her mask begin  
to crack. 

“i know it’s been hard, and i’ve hurt you more times than i can apologize for. you don’t deserve any of that. but trust me when i tell you this time i’m going to make it up to you. this time i’m here to stay.”

010\. 

percy comes out of the principia in a toga and a purple camp jupiter shirt underneath. feeling the spring air and the scent of fresno, california and new beginnings surround him. 

reyna crosses her arms over her chest and grins. “purple never did look bad on you.”

percy girlishly bats his eyes at her and seeing reyna’s mouth twitch drives him to have a laugh attack and reyna quickly follows suit. percy stops laughing, however, when he notices the way her eyes crinkle when she laughs and the way her braid elegantly falls down her back. he soon realizes that her laugh is what love sounds like and he wonders why it took him so long to figure that out.

he also wonders if aphrodite -- venus (he always hated letting his graecus slip out when he was on roman land with roman gods) was ever able to craft anything more beautiful. he is convinced that nothing in the realm of gods or mortals could ever compare with the beauty he saw in his complete opposite; his perfect match.

once they compose themselves, percy gives her a half smile and grabs her hand in his. 

they go back into the principia and ascend towards the high back chairs at the top of the room as he takes his seat next to hers. 

before he sits, however, he takes a second to admire the way she sat atop that high backed chair like a throne, reflecting on how fitting her name really was; queen. that was the only proper way to describe her.

they make a silent promise that day. 

that as long as reyna is alive, percy would never leave her aside.  
and that as long as percy is by her side, reyna would find a reason to believe in love.

**Author's Note:**

> this is super au and i probably messed up on a lot since i haven't read pjo/hoo since like 2013 so my apologies, but i hope you all enjoyed it anyway.
> 
> i’ve been in a huge pjo mood so let's see what else i churn out. ugh this is truly my otp lmao
> 
> thanks for reading!


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